1.4: GIS Education And Training

GIS, virtual globes, GPS, and remote sensing are revolutionizing and revitalizing the discipline of geography. This has greatly improved the outlook for geography students and others who use spatial data in securing jobs. Along with nanotechnology and biotechnology, the U.S. Department of Labor identified geotechnology as one of the three most important emerging and evolving fields of study (Gewin, 2004).

Despite the good news, students often run high on anxiety when it comes to securing future employment, and they often ask for advice on what they should study to secure a GIS position. They ask about software, course selection, whether they should get a certificate, and even what should be their major or specialization. GIS professionals, administrators, and academics all have their own ideas and biases, but it usually comes down to this question: What is more useful, GIS training or GIS education? Students can usually answer this question if they can answer another related question: Do you want to apply GIS or focus on the technology itself?

GIS Education

If you want a position using GIS, you need to obtain conceptually both a geographic perspective and an idea of what one can do with a GIS. Both of these are conceptual topics that primarily stay away from the practical details of any particular GIS program. The focus is on applying GIS to answer real-world or discipline specific questions. It involves knowing about your data sources, the real-world processes of your discipline, and how one can use GIS to answer specific questions. GIS software training is a by-product, not the focus.

Specifically, a GIS education should provide students with:

1. A geographic perspective. This is the process of finding, showing, explaining, and predicting geographic patterns (discussed briefly under the third GIS definition above).
2. GIS concepts and cartographic principles. GIS concepts like buffering and overlay have their origin outside of GIS, but a number of procedures like these are closely tied to the technology. After becoming familiar with these processes, you need to determine which specific GIS processes are needed—and the order of these processes—to complete your projects. As Adena Schutzberg suggests, your objective is to “…get your head around how GIS ‘thinks” (Schutzberg, 2003).

GIS Training

Who would argue that training is not important? No doubt, businesses and agencies benefit when new hires already have the training to run their specific software programs. That said, it is easier to train someone in the use of a specific program if they understand the underlying concepts.

The problem with most GIS training is that the trainees are learning how to perform a specific set of routines. They are not primarily learning the spatial concepts relating to those routines although they may be secondarily obtained with work experience. Yes, training is important, but you will not “get your head around how GIS thinks” with training alone. Many of the jobs associated with training alone are data entry jobs that many might find tedious over time and frequently one’s advancement is limited. To avoid this, but stick to the training route, one can develop extensive database and programming skills. With these skills, you can usually rise up to better paying positions.

GIS Experience

Perhaps the best piece of advice I could give is that both education and training are important, but so is on-the-job experience. For those just starting out, GIS experience comes in a couple forms: internships and research assistantships.

An internship is a valuable way to obtain on-the-job experience. A good internship allows you to be part of the agency or organization’s day-to-day activities. They are usually commonly available, especially with government agencies.

To find these opportunities, talk with your academic advisor, go to your campus’s career services office, network at GIS seminars and meetings, or go directly to government agencies, organizations, and local companies that interest you. If you go directly to agencies, organizations, and businesses, you should provide the name of a faculty member as a reference, an updated resume, and you may want to volunteer your services.

Be sure that you have the appropriate skills for the internship and that you stick with the internship for a specified period. If you leave it abruptly, it hurts the chances of future students because many businesses and agencies have a tenuous relationship with internships in general, and they might decide that interns are too much trouble. Think of internships as necessary work experience.

Internships are important because you are more employable after this experience, it provides you with a list of contacts for future job opportunities, and it gives you a sense of the type of job you might want after college. Additionally, you may be offered a position at the agency where you interned.

Research assistantships are student positions where you assist a faculty member with the faculty member’s research. Some of these assistantships may involve GIS or other geotechnologies. Assistantships are available in many university academic departments, especially those that have graduate programs. Interested students should contact the department directly. Usually the assistantships are supported by external grant funding, so they are temporary positions but valuable experiences.